Colm Murphy, pictured here in 2005, is accused of providing two mobile phones to the Real IRA members who left a car bomb in Omagh. Photograph: Haydn West/PA

The failure of two men accused of playing a central role in the Real IRA Omagh bomb massacre to turn up in court demonstrated how little they cared for the judicial process, a victims' lawyer claimed on Monday.

Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly refused to attend a retrial of a civil trial taken against them by relatives of some of the 29 men, women and children killed in Northern Ireland's single biggest terrorist atrocity.

Noting their absence in Belfast high court Lord Brennan QC said it was "just common sense" that if the pair did not turn up it would be inferred that "they are treating this court and this case with, putting it generously, indifference".

The barrister for the Omagh victims' families alleged in court that Murphy provided two mobile phones to the Real IRA bombers who left a car bomb in the centre of the County Tyrone market town in August 1998.

Lord Brennan also told the court that Daly used one of the phones during the bomb run between Dundalk and Omagh on the day of the explosion.

The court was also shown documents that track the calls made, using information from cell masts, on the day of the bombing.

The lawyer said it showed the movements of a "scout car", adding that it was what you would expect if a vehicle travelled to Omagh to get the all-clear before reporting back so the car containing the bomb could be put in place.

"How did those telephones come to be used on the bomb run?" Lord Brennan said. "It takes a lot of explaining."

Murphy and Daly won a retrial of the civil action which initially found the pair responsible for organising the attack on Omagh.

Two other men found responsible in the first civil case ruling previously failed to have the findings against them overturned.

They are convicted Real IRA founder and leader, Michael McKevitt, and fellow dissident republican Liam Campbell, who is fighting extradition to Lithuania on arms smuggling charges.

Last week it emerged that McKevitt and Campbell are seeking to go before the European court of human rights to overturn the ruling.

No one has been convicted in a criminal court for their role in planning and executing the largest terrorist atrocity in the Northern Ireland Troubles.

In the Omagh families' initial civic case Mr Justice Morgan, who is now Northern Ireland's lord chief justice, ordered the defendants to pay £1.6m in compensation.

The court of appeal in Belfast subsequently upheld Murphy and Daly's legal challenge to Mr Justice Morgan's ruling and won the right to a retrial.